My Plantcentric Journey

Posts tagged ‘Forks Over Knives’

Our sons live across the country now, but my gift to my husband, Bill, was us re-watching the movie, Forks Over Knives.

It was about 3 years ago, when we watched it for the first time. After it was done, my husband turned to me and firmly said, “I’m going vegan. You don’t have to, but I am.” I was filled with trepidation. What would we eat? But I shakily said with a gulp, “If you’re going to, I will to.” Bill now says, that inside, he was so scared that he was silently screaming, “No! No! I didn’t mean it! I was only kidding!” But he never shared that. He said OK. And from that moment on, we never looked back and changed our lives.

We got our copy of Forks Over Knives from the library, but you can watch it for a nominal fee on Netflix and YouTube. Get more info at http://www.forkoverknives.com There you can sign up for free newsletters with recipes, etc.

Like this:

I remember it like it was yesterday. Last Christmas, after a substantial weight loss journey for both of us, I surprised my husband with
Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD’s Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Rip Esselstyn’s The Engine 2 Diet, Julieanna Hever, M.S., R.D., CPT The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, The Forks Over Knives Companion Book, and Kathy Hester’s The Vegan Slow Cooker. After reading Dr. Esselstyn’s & Rip Esselstyn’s books, my husband, Bill, turned to me and said, “I’m going vegan. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I am. I’m starting now.” I about choked! We had just “come out” as vegetarian, but this was different. This was really radical. Go without cheese?? And ice cream and pudding? I shakily said, “OK. If you are, I am too.” Gulp!

Then, we watched Dr. Robert Lustig’s The Bitter Truth About Sugar

We had already been following the Rule of 5 from You on a Diet by Michael F. Roizen, MD and Mehmet C. Oz, MD, one of which was no high fructose corn syrup, but now we cut out any kind of added sugar.

We are also learning about GMO’s and trying to cut them out of our diet. Pretty hard when there is currently no labeling. We definitely are supporting legislation to have all food that has GMO’s in them to be labeled.
What a great year it’s been. It hasn’t been hard. We just armed ourselves with knowlege about the effects of dairy and used vegan cookbooks. We discovered great new flavors, spices and ways of cooking. No meat, no dairy, no added oil and no added sugar. Our palates have really grown.

Imagine running into a friend at the gym who was just finishing her aerobic workout. Sweaty and flushed, she downs a bottle of water and remarks, “Got to get my hydrogen!” While we may instinctively sense that there is something odd about thatstatement, in Western countries, and particularly the U.S., people make very similar comments on a regular basis. “Just getting my protein in!” someone will cheerfully report as they dig into General Tso’s chicken or crack open a hard-boiled egg. “I just make sure to eat lots of legumes,” a vegan will say in response to the question of how they get enough protein without eating animal products.

Conveniently, eating a varied whole-food, plant-based diet will naturally provide approximately 10% of protein from total calories without any special effort.

The strapping 6-foot-2 Dax became a vegan in January 2012 after learning that his “Hit and Run” co-star Beau Bridges maintains his age-defying health with a vegan diet. “When I saw his age was 70, I almost crapped myself,” Dax told the October 2012 issue of Playboy. “I would go, ‘Beau, you’re not supposed to be able to punch somebody out in a scene at 70. My grandpa couldn’t have done that. What’s your secret?’ And he goes, ‘I’ve been a vegan for 12 years.’ I was like, ‘I need to think about this.’ And then I saw the documentary ‘Forks Over Knives’ and I was like, I’m in. I’ve been a vegan since January.”

Actor Dax Shepard has abused drugs and alcohol, ate poorly, and did pretty much everything a person could do to ruin his health, but has experienced a dramatic transformation since switching to a vegan diet.

The strapping 6-foot-2 Dax became a vegan in January 2012 after learning that his “Hit and Run” co-star Beau Bridges maintains his age-defying health with a vegan diet.

“When I saw his age was 70, I almost crapped myself,” Dax told the October 2012 issue ofPlayboy. “I would go, ‘Beau, you’re not supposed to be able to punch somebody out in a scene at 70. My grandpa couldn’t have done that. What’s your secret?’

“And he goes, ‘I’ve been a vegan for 12 years.’ I was like, ‘I need to think about this.’ And then I saw the documentary ‘Forks Over Knives’ and I was like, I’m in. I’ve been a vegan since January.”

Shepard’s fiancée, actress Kristen Bell, is a longtime vegetarian who made the conversion with him. Dax says he has never felt better.

“It’s nothing like the pill in ‘The Matrix’ but damn good, like 15% across the board in every respect,” he says. “I sleep 15% better. My allergies are at least 15% better. I have fewer body aches. My skin looks better. I’m never starving, and I never need to ride the couch feeling completely full and disgusting.”

Dax, who has dated some beautiful actresses, including Kate Hudson, is feeling better and happier since curbing his self-destructive habits. Shepard confesses he still drinks too much coffee and smokes cigarettes, but otherwise life is better than ever.

“The past eight years since I got sober have honestly been about trying to peel back each of those habits, to get back to the 12-year-old kid inside who was tremendously excited about life,” he says.

Samantha Chang is the executive editor and co-owner of http://www.theimproper.com., an arts and entertainment website in New York City. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Samantha is a former financial journalist who enjoys running, cycling and music. Contact her at schang@theImproper.com.